Witnesses testify they saw accused killer in hole by rural trail

Dylan Kantimer was returning from work to his rural Woodridge-area home on Aug. 25, 2022, when he received an odd message from his wife.

“(She) texted me and said there was a vehicle parked at the end of our road,” Kantimer testified Wednesday.

Kantimer arrived to find a grey Mazda parked along the edge of his property, next to an ATV trail and near provincial road 210.

“There was a lot of theft around, so I figured I would go take a look, see what’s going on,” he said.

Kantimer looked inside the car and saw the keys still in the ignition, a roll of duct tape and a cellphone sitting on the backseat. He was walking back to his truck when he saw a man walking toward him with his shirt pulled over his face.

“I didn’t really think anything of it,” he said. “COVID was going at that time, so I figured maybe somebody was worried about germs or something.”

Kantimer asked the man what he was doing. “At first he just said he was digging a hole, which I thought was weird, and then he said he was digging a tunnel.”

Prosecutors allege that man was Josh Benoit. The 24-year-old is on trial for first-degree murder in the stabbing death of 20-year-old Mackaylah Gerard-Roussin, whose body was unearthed by police from that same hole three days later.

Kantimer picked up his wife and drove to her father Bruce Ascoli’s nearby home for dinner. Kantimer told Ascoli what he had seen, and the two men decided to return to the dig site and “ask this guy more questions.”

Kantimer and Ascoli took an off-road vehicle to the site and found the man in a hole that Kantimer estimated to be about three or four feet deep.

“I guess we got there too quick, because he didn’t have time to put his shirt over his face at this point,” Kantimer said.

“I noticed that there was a small spade with a green handle, a tape measure and a blue lid from a Rubbermaid container,” he said.

Court has heard Gerard-Roussin’s body was buried inside a Rubbermaid container.

Kantimer asked the man his name and he said “Kyle, from Lockport.”

“I just thought it was very strange that somebody would drive all that way just to dig a hole in the middle of nowhere, really,” Kantimer said.

Kantimer and Ascoli returned home for a bite to eat and drove back minutes later to find the man standing beside the hole, Ascoli testified.

“I made a comment that he should fill that hole in because it’s right beside a quad trail and it will be getting dark shortly,” Ascoli said.

“I said, kind of joking: ‘Are you sleeping here tonight?’ and he kind of smirked, smiled a bit,” he said.

Kantimer and Ascoli returned home, at which point Kantimer called RCMP.

Gerard-Roussin was last seen leaving her Winnipeg apartment on the evening of Aug. 25 to meet Benoit, prosecutors allege.

Benoit had been digging Gerard-Roussin’s grave that same day when, just one hour later, he messaged her asking if she “wants to hang,” Crown attorney Danielle Simard alleged in an opening submission to Court of King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond last week.

Benoit’s father has testified he called police after discovering a body in the trunk of Benoit’s car Aug. 27.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca